1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and, more specifically, to systems and methods for provisioning resources in a broadband network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Demand for in-home data and telephony services has grown dramatically in recent years and is expected to continue to increase. Accordingly, providers of data and telephony services have sought to design and deploy broadband networks with increased delivery capacity.
One broadband technology that has become particularly popular is digital subscriber lines (DSL). DSL offers increased data transfer rates and integrated telephony and data services using the existing public switched telephone network (PSTN), which previously was used exclusively for telephone voice communications.
As the demand for DSL service has grown, service providers have needed to build-out their infrastructure for providing DSL service. In particular, service providers have needed to quickly install large numbers of network elements devoted to providing DSL service. For example, service providers have needed to install large numbers of broadband access multiplexing elements, which generally include digital subscriber line access multiplexors (DSLAM's) and miniature remote access multiplexors (MINIRAM's). Installing, managing, and administering these quickly expanding, geographically distributed DSL networks has become increasingly complex, time consuming, and expensive.
One aspect of DSL network maintenance that is very cost and labor intensive is provisioning permanent virtual circuits (PVC's) in broadband access multiplexing elements. PVC's are permanent, “always on” connections between devices in the DSL network. A physical transmission path may be divided into a certain number of virtual paths. Each virtual path may be further divided into a certain number of virtual channels. Each PVC may be identified by a virtual path identifier (VPI) and a virtual channel identifier (VCI). At a multiplexing element, PVC's may be connected using VPI's and VCI's. Thus, it is necessary to assign a specific VPI and a VCI to each of the multiplexor's input ports. This is often a difficult task because multiplexors may often contain a very high quantity of inputs, and the number of VCI's and VPI's available is limited.
There are several existing methods for assigning a VPI and a VCI to each multiplexor input. One existing scheme assigns a VPI and a VCI to each input from an algorithm based on the rack, shelf, card and port to which that input path is connected. However, this scheme is ineffective because multiplexors often contain too many racks, shelves, cards, and ports.
Another existing scheme selects a new VPI and VCI for each “new” input. A “new” input is created each time a new subscriber requests DSL service. For each new input, an available VPI and VCI is selected from a pool of available VPI's and VCI's. When a VPI and a VCI is selected for the new input they are removed from the pool. If an existing subscriber wishes to have his or her service discontinued, then an existing connection must be deleted. When an existing connection is deleted the existing VPI and VCI are placed back in the pool. However, the effectiveness of this scheme is limited because attempts to delete a virtual circuit cross connection are often unsuccessful. Thus, despite attempts to delete it, a VPI and VCI may remain assigned to a given input even if that input is not actually used by a subscriber. When a new subscriber requests service, he or she may be assigned the same VPI and VCI as the connection that the service provider had previously attempted to remove. Therefore, the new subscriber's cross connection will fail.
Thus, a need exists in the art for systems and methods for provisioning virtual circuits in broadband access multiplexing elements that are suitable for the high quantity of multiplexor inputs and that eliminate the problem of service failure due to unsuccessful cross connection deletion attempts.